Some crops thrive and others struggle

Farm update
 
In agriculture, working with the seasons is both wonderful and challenging.  We definitely benefit from seasonal living/eating, but every year is different and no matter how much you plan, there is always a need to adjust to conditions.  
 
This year for example, onions (just green right now, bulb onions are not ready yet) are awesome!  We were able to weed them enough so they are not competing with weeds for nutrients and harvest is very straightforward.  Conditions are also dry enough to prevent  premature decay on plants.  This is a huge contrast to last year where we had to plant into a section that had more moisture than we would like and also stayed wetter than is necessary for weeding with our walk-behind tractors.   We had to spend a ton of time hand weeding, but it still was not enough to get ahead of weeds, so harvest was smaller and in a jungle of weeds. 
 
Pepper and potato plants also really suffered from disease because of wet conditions last year.  Beets were riddled with disease and we had a multi-month gap in production for that staple crop.  Celery on the other hand, loved it and probably was our best celery crop ever. 
 
The challenge crop this year, hands-down are our brassicas.  Sometimes referred to as the cabbage family; broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kohlrabi have all struggled this year.  We started by putting them in one of our newer field sections (we have only used it in the last few seasons) and is probably not suitable for growing vegetables.  It dries out early and we have only had faster maturing crops in it before so it has not been as clear as it was this year, that it is too sandy and too close to a line of black walnuts on the other side of the fence.  The second succession of brassicas have had insect problems that we have not really seen before, but likely because of the mild winter we had.  After some research we are starting to employ some new cultural techniques in the field (routines like removing affected plants or sections) and will hopefully be better prepared in the future.
 
The commonality here is that there are always challenging conditions and with a wide variety in our crop plan, not everything can work out every year.  What is important is that we take notes from what happened and adjust.  Next year that brassica field section will be permanently put out of use for vegetables (we are thinking a pollinator section?) and we have great new insect management techniques which diversify our options when we are inevitably struck with these challenges in the future.  It it really just a cycle of problem-solve, adjust, move forward!